Refugee camps are sudden, spontaneous population centers that can persist for years. Their persistence provides an opportunity to learn about the forces of path dependence. I argue that residents stay because the camps create local amenities. I examine this question using refugee camps established in Haiti after a 1937 massacre in the Dominican Republic. Despite the residents’ freedom to migrate, the camps evolved into persistent settlements where the refugees’ descendants resided 70 years later. I show that these camps gave residents access to public land with incomplete rights and to social networks that help with informal insurance. While residents 70 years later have slightly lower levels of literacy, they are not significantly disadvantaged on other margins. I interpret these results as evidence of path dependence driven by amenities rather than local productivity advantages.

难民营是突发的、自发的人口中心，可以持续多年。他们的坚持让我们有机会了解路径依赖的力量。我认为居民留下来是因为营地创造了当地的便利设施。我使用 1937 年多米尼加共和国大屠杀后在海地建立的难民营来研究这个问题。尽管居民可以自由迁徙，但难民营在 70 年后演变成永久性定居点，难民的后代居住在那里。我展示了这些营地让居民能够使用不完全权利的公共土地和有助于非正式保险的社交网络。虽然 70 年后居民的识字水平略低，但他们在其他方面并没有明显处于不利地位。